Ella Minnow Pea - what did you think?

[Jenny, honorary mod - inactive]

As usual, once you have read the book can you give me a mini review here.

What I want from you guys is:

A star rating out of 5 (exactly the same as Goodreads).

and

A brief description of what you thought about the book. Good story? Interesting? Insightful? Would you read some more of the author's work? Did you learn anything from reading it. etc. etc.

[Petra]

I enjoyed this story. It's an interesting premise of what might happen if we were to lose our method of communicating and needing to find other ways. The book isn't insightful, I think, as it's too shallow for in-depth analysis and new ideas/thoughts but it does leave one with a warm feeling towards mankind in general. The people do not give up and there's a statement made near the end saying that once all the letters/words are gone, communication would still continue in other ways. That's a nice idea.
I would read more by this author. Not right now but another day.

[Cecily]

I'm afraid I only give it 1*.

My review is rather long, so here's a link to the full version: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... and an abbreviated version is below.

Anyone reading this knows the basic plot, style and structure, so I can skip that.

I thought the premise was interesting, but was disappointed to find the actual book was just silly, without the benefit of being amusing or enlightening.

In particular, it attempts to address BIG issues (totalitarianism, censorship versus free speech, superstition versus science, loyalty to friends and family versus loyalty to the state, the power of language etc), but only does so in a superficial way.

Also, for a book that is all about the power of language and tricks with language, I thought it was poorly written. The characters were so similar that I often had to look ahead to see who a letter was from and despite the showy vocabulary in the first few pages, there were basic grammatical errors that annoyed me.

As for the plot, it was too obviously formulaic. Whilst the main concept is very original, an arbitrary deadline was set, allegedly to solve their problems, but really just to add some excitement, as with the very feeble sub plot of a love story.

Writing with limitations, whether that be a min or max word count, limited vocabulary or limited letters, using rhyme or whatever can be a worthwhile intellectual exercise for a writer, but that doesn’t mean the result is worth publishing.

One could try to interpret profound truths from this book, but I think it would be more worthwhile to read Nineteen Eighty Four, The Trial, Fahrenheit 451, Oryx and Crake, Cat’s Cradle, Riddley Walker, or The Handmaid’s Tale instead etc.

[Shannon]

2 stars from me. Probably more fun to write it than to read it.

[Jaime]

I gave the book two stars also. See the other discussion post for my comments.

[Jenny, honorary mod - inactive]

So did I!! I agree with you Shannon!!